


Language

by HoneySempai



Series: A Cord of Three Strands [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Petshop of Horrors
Genre: Coded Language, F/M, Fake Marriage, Gen, Jealous Bucky Barnes, Jewish Howard Stark, Jewish Steve Rogers, M/M, Multi, Polyamory Negotiations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-07
Updated: 2017-09-03
Packaged: 2018-11-28 19:01:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11424156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HoneySempai/pseuds/HoneySempai
Summary: Steve is falling for Peggy, that much is abundantly clear, so Peggy and Bucky have to learn how to communicate.It goes differently than expected.





	1. Prologue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> **TW referenced period-typical homophobia and torture**

"Hey, Steve?"

"Yeah, Buck?"

"Been thinkin' about something."

"That's unusual."

Steve, though staring at the ceiling, hears and feels Bucky pull a pillow out from under his head; he knows he's earned what's coming, and so he doesn't duck when it whaps against his face. It's February of 1935; Sarah's been out on a call since yesterday (housecalls are becoming rarer and the hospital hasn't called her back to let her know if she's hired yet, so round-the-clock assignments are a welcome if exhausting source of income), and while Steve was at his own job Bucky had wandered over to their apartment to surprise whoever came home first with an already prepared meal. Steve had made token protests when he came home, but piped down when Bucky set a warm bowl of stew--actual stew, not the mostly-broth soup Steve and Sarah are used to consuming--in his aching-with-cold fingers. He'd scarfed it down as soon as it had cooled enough to not burn the roof of his mouth, and when he was done they had padded into Steve's room, so Bucky could warm up the rest of him.

"Do you wanna know what I'm thinkin' about, or not?"

Steve wriggles enough to turn over onto his side, re-fitting his neck over Bucky's outstretched arm comfortably and opening his eyes wide before he bats them. "Yes, of course, Bucky. I _live_ to know your thoughts."

"Punk." Bucky grabs and squeezes Steve's nose with the knuckles of his index and middle finger; Steve pushes his hand away but, to mollify him, tilts his head back and presses a quick kiss to Bucky's forehead.

"All right. Tell me what you're thinking of."

"Well. First, you're not gonna like it."

"I'm sold."

"Let. Me. Talk," Bucky grits out, punctuating each word with a sharp, ticklish poke to Steve's side; he does get unequivocal joy out of the way Steve squirms, at least, as well as the way he flops on top of Steve to hold him still. 

"Okay, okay..." Steve shifts underneath him, because asthma makes Bucky's weight on his chest unfortunately unsustainable, and Bucky sits up on his elbows, so he can keep easy eye contact with Steve.

"All right, so," Bucky says, in _that_ tone, and any residual mirth in Steve takes a knee. "You're not gonna like it, but I think it's necessary. 'Cause people are...people are startin' to ask me."

"About what?" Steve props his own self up on his elbows. "About us?" He sits up fully, forcing Bucky to sit back on his haunches.

"No no no," Bucky says quickly; reassuring. "Opposite, in fact. They're startin' to ask me about, you know, when I'm...if I'm seein' anyone. Any girls."

"...Ah." Not exactly a comforting alternative, but not a shocking one, either, considering that Bucky is attractive, well-off, and almost seventeen. Steve is only one of those things, so no one's been asking him the same type of questions.

"So I was thinking," Bucky says, setting his hands on Steve's knees. "That you and I should have a...a code."

"A code."

"Yeah. For when we're...out and about."

Steve quirks an eyebrow, and then the other. "Gimme a for instance."

"Um...all right. Let's say I find somebody for you to go out with, or Becca does or someone. If she, the girl, if she doesn't _know_ , if she thinks there's a chance, I'll say something like, "oh, she's _wife material_ " or something like that. Just so...you know how to act with her."

Steve frowns. 

"Yeah, me too," Bucky grimaces. "I just...but I mean, it's not like we gotta pretend to be serious with anyone just yet. We won't be breakin' any hearts if we go on one or two dates with a girl and then decide that, nah, it's not going anywhere."

Steve shifts from side to side, obviously aware of the plan's necessity, and moody about it. Bucky rests his chin on Steve's knee, pulling a sympathetic face, and then a silly one. Steve flicks his forehead, which earns him a caught wrist and a kiss to his knuckles.

"What else you thinkin'?"

The code takes some time to develop fully, but it works. Despite numerous observations that Steve and Bucky live in each other's back pockets, and the occasional off-color joke, no one ever figures out that when Bucky assures Steve that his blind date knows "only the good stuff" about him, he means "She's not interested in men". They expand on their vernacular as well, adding nuance; "wife material" is too on-the-nose for when they're in the middle of a group date that unexpectedly starts going smoothly, so it gets replaced with jokes about "being invisible".

"Maybe she's got a friend", a sort of "roger that", is one of the appropriate responses, based on the circumstances. But when Agent Red Dress saunters up to them, and she isn't chased off by Bucky's blatant stare or snide tone or clenched fist, and she shares _that_ smile, holds _that_ gaze, with the man Bucky has been in love with for the past fourteen years, Steve's "Maybe she's got a friend" rings exceptionally hollow.

"So how do you know that...who is that, again?" Bucky asks, once they slip back into their seats.

"Peggy Carter. She's a higher-up with the SSR," Steve says, and Bucky doesn't miss the color that rises on his face. "I met her when I was at Camp Lehigh; she took notes on all the candidates for, for Project Rebirth. I guess...I guess she must've liked me, her and Dr. Erskine both, because she gave me her vote."

"Now I know who to thank for this," Bucky says, gesturing at Steve's body with both hands, aiming for "fawning admirer" over "longtime bedmate".

Steve huffs his bashful little laugh, and Bucky can't help but smile a little. On the table, when he was lucid enough to worry, he'd been scared that he'd only get to hear that sound again in the afterlife. "That ain't the only thing you should thank her for. I couldn't have gotten to Kreichsberg so quickly without her."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I was gonna drive to Austria. Woulda hoofed it if I had to. But she went to Stark--d'you meet him yet, Howard Stark?" 

Bucky shrugs. Probably; he hadn't recognized everyone who interviewed him after coming back to the base.

"Well in any case, she convinced him to commandeer the plane that they dropped me off in. Told him..." Steve laughs, sounding sincerely delighted, "told him that if he didn't help me she would make his life hell, starting with..." He glances down meaningfully at his lap, blushing but still obviously tickled, "and ending with his career. _And don't think I won't!_ " he quotes in his best British accent.

"That's too much," Bucky says, edging as close as he can to deadpanning without being as rude to Steve as he'd attempted to be to Red Dress.

Steve doesn't catch it. "I don't think Stark needed that sort of convincing, honestly; they're...they're friends," and now he's giving a little frown, the one that usually precedes his own "I'm invisible", and Bucky feels his stomach evaporate. "That's just what they're like with each other. She's...Peggy's that sort of personality."

Bucky's jaw is clenching painfully and without his say-so. "She must be hard to work with."

"Nah," Steve drawls, and he sounds _fond_. "She's actually...she just doesn't take any crap; can't afford to. We talked about it once. She's...like how I was, before all _this_ ," he gestures to himself. "With no one ever taking you seriously, you know? Me 'cause I was...well, _me_ ; her 'cause she's a woman. So she...she gets it. And she's... _forceful_ 'cause she has to be. Not like there's a serum that's gonna turn her into a man. But she's not really mean or anything; she's...she's got a good heart, once you get to know her one-on-one. She looks out for people. Looks out for _me_ , at least."

"Well she sounds like one hell of a lady," Bucky vomits up, knowing the grin he's wearing is a somewhat manic one as he tips his glass at Steve. "Sounds like a woman you could spend the rest of your life with, in fact."

The phrasing catches Steve off guard, _finally_. Bucky peers over the rim of his glass as he gulps down the rest of his drink; he can see Steve reducing it like a fraction down to its most basic parts, coupling it with the comment on invisibility, and his eyes widen just a little.

"No way," he laughs, purposefully, raising his glass to take a sip. "In my dreams, maybe."

"I dunno, that dress was awfully non-regulation for your dreams."

"It's not gonna happen," Steve says, shaking his head, a little vehemently. "She's got something going on with Stark, anyway." Bucky finds his empty glass plucked abruptly out of his hand. "I'm gonna get us another round."

Bucky isn't sure whether to take that as a peace offering or not. 

The fact that Steve manufactures the rest of the night's conversation so as to avoid even referencing Red Dress isn't exactly reassuring either.


	2. Warning Shots

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **TW: References to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust, vomiting, and torture/sexual assault; um...some nationalist-flavored misogyny?**

"And _then_ ," Monty snickers, " _then_ the great big oaf says "how do I know you and Stark haven't been fonduing?""

"Your American accent stinks, pal," Bucky says, with the thickest, most Brooklyn twang he can muster, while the rest of the newly minted Howling Commandos burst into laughter around the table within HQ that they've set themselves up around. 

"That's what you take from this story, Barnes?" Monty asks through his laughter.

"I've known the guy since '29, I've seen him monumentally fuck up with women before." Never quite in this way, though. It had actually once fallen to Bucky to chase off two women in much the same manner that Steve had apparently managed to piss off Peggy, and hopefully Lorraine as well. "Surprised the asshole didn't do something like this sooner, honestly."

"So is "fonduing" actually something you Americans say?" Monty asks. 

"No...? I don't know where he gets this shit. Ain't from me."

"Y'know for someone so hopeless, he sure seems to roam around," Morita mutters. 

"Well that just means there's hope for you guys, right?"

The group erupts into loud, protesting guffaws, and Bucky gets a few middle fingers thrown his way, as well as a slap to the side of the head. 

"Anyway. Lay your bets on whether Carter forgives him or murders him," Dugan says with a grin, plucking his hat off his head and holding it out as if to collect the money. 

Dernier rattles something off in French, and Gabe snorts. "She's gone on him. Completely. She'll forgive him."

"I dunno, guys," Morita counters, shaking his head. "Woman scorned..."

"I agree with Morita," Monty says. "English ladies have dignity, unlike your American women." There's a loud noise of disagreement, of the national pride bent, and Monty gets a middle finger or two, as well. "She's a tigress, that one. Once she's had enough of a mate's antics, she'll give him the boot."

"Spoken like a true cynic," Dugan teases, donning his hat once again. "Carter's hooked on him. The woman flew him into an active war zone just to rescue our dumb asses at his behest, for pete's sake."

"So did Stark," Bucky snorts, feeling a strange heaviness in his hands as he speaks.

"Perhaps _Stark's_ hooked on him, too," Monty snickers.

"Wouldn't surprise me~" Dugan says, almost in sing-song, his voice dropping conspiratorially.

Bucky joins in on the disgusted faces a few of the other guys pull, thinking that all he's ever wanted for Steve is for people to admire him the way he deserves, and at the same time wondering how much fucking competition he's gonna have to deal with.

"Nah, no way," Morita says, his nose wrinkling. "Stark's in it for a laugh. He's _that_ type."

Stark's in it for his people, the same as Steve is, Bucky thinks. At the bar, after Peggy left, Steve had told him that Stark had once mentioned that he had extended family in Germany, like Steve did in Lithuania, and it was nice to know that there was a supervising agent in the SSR who wouldn't laugh off any of Steve's concerns in this regard, having grown up knowing how bad it could get...

His stomach clenches suddenly, the rations he'd somehow simultaneously shoveled into his mouth and forced himself to choke down not long ago backtracking through his intestines. The heat that rests just below his sternum when he's about to throw up begins to form, and it's only aborted by the muffled sound of gunshots in the distance.

The group scrambles for defensive cover; four of them ducking behind bookshelves, Bucky and Gabe pushing the table over and huddling behind it, all of them drawing their guns and readying to aim them. The ringing echo of the initial gunshots has dissipated, leaving a tense minute-long silence in its wake; it breaks with the sound of a door opening down the hallway, and the sound of heeled shoes clicking against the floor.

Monty, with the rank of lieutenant, is technically second-in-command, and he's set himself up so he has the best view of the encroaching threat. The other Commandos watch his face as it frowns, then twists in confusion, and finally seems to decide that there is no danger at all; before any of the Commandos can question him, however, Peggy strolls into view, looking as unruffled as always.

"What's all this, then?" she asks, quirking an eyebrow at the overturned table and skirmish-ready men.

"Heard gunshots, ma'am," Monty replies, still a tad cautiously.

"...Ah. We--Captain Rogers and I--had an impromptu equipment test down the hall. We didn't realize you were out here. Or that we could be heard, really. My apologies, gentlemen."

She acknowledges the ripple of acceptance that comes from most of the Commandos with a sweep of her gaze; it lands on Bucky, and if the sudden anger-tinged fear wrapping around his guts shows on his face, she only notes it with the briefest of lingering glances before she nods at the group as a whole and strides away.

"Told you she'd kill him," Morita says under his breath, and Bucky only just remembers to offer a laugh with the rest of the men, and to keep his stride suitably leisurely as he goes the way Peggy came, a bullet-ridden corpse filling up his mind's eye and urging him to run to it, even as he tries to talk himself into believing that the possibility is ludicrous.

The rational half of him proves correct, as by the time he, the rest of the Commandos straggling behind him, makes it to the room Peggy had left, Steve and Howard are leaning over a table, passing a pencil back and forth between them as they scratch notes out on a piece of paper. The commotion startles them into looking up, Steve straightening himself out fully; Bucky looks him over for any sort of injury, and holds in the exhalation of relief when he finds none.

"Heard you got shot," Dugan says conversationally, after a moment of befuddled silence passes between all assembled.

"Oh!" Steve lets out an uncomfortable little laugh while Howard snorts beside him. "Yeah. Well. Shot _at_ , in any case. We were testing, um...we tested this out."

He turns, leaning around Howard--Bucky sees Howard step back, maybe a little too nervously for normality, and he tries not to narrow his eyes at the man--and pulls a silver, slightly conical disc into his arms.

"We're thinkin' I'm gonna be using this on the field," Steve continues, holding the shield up for their appraisal. "It's...what'd you say about it, Howard?"

"Made of vibranium," Howard steps in. "A small but very generous donation from our not-quite-friends in Wakanda, some 3000 miles south of here," he adds, for the benefit of those who are not strong in geography. "Stronger than steel, third the weight, so named because it absorbs all vibrations. Including those from gunshot, as our own Agent Carter demonstrated for us a few moments ago."

"Catch," Steve says, and Bucky does so when Steve tosses the shield into his hands. Bucky can't help but be intrigued, despite himself; the way the shield flips around his hands easily, how drumming his fingers against it produces no sensation on the opposing side, the excited little smirk on Steve's face as he watches Bucky toy with it.

"And the rest of us poor bastards get...what, exactly?" Morita asks, sounding almost amused, but darkly so.

"We're still figuring that out," Howard assures.

"In the meantime, I'm gonna..." Steve starts, before hesitating, looking a tad embarrassed. "We're thinking that, for the most part, I'll be front and center, drawing the attention."

"Like [Our Lady of No Man's Land](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MlwHKphUU_Y) before him," Howard says brightly, bringing actual, though faint, color to Steve's face.

"How modest," Monty teases, and Steve almost cringes.

"You guys'll flank me with actual, y'know, guns," Steve says, nearing apologetic. "Something a little more immediately useful."

"You could pro'ly use this thing as a weapon, too," Bucky says, tossing the shield a few feet in the air and then catching it one-handedly. "Throw it like a [cake pan](https://pilotonline.com/entertainment/years-later-frisbee-still-flying-high/article_24b50ef7-d8bd-557f-9035-9d65c9aee0b1.html)." He demonstrates, but without letting it go. "You take something stronger than steel to the neck, I don't think you're gettin' back up right away. Leaves room for you to hold a smaller weapon underneath, too."

"Yeah, those were my thoughts," Howard says, nodding at Bucky.

"You hear that, Cap?" Dugan says. "The next time Agent Carter comes after you, you'll be well-prepared."

Steve's face turns very visibly pink at that point, and Bucky strives to keep his face from doing the same. "She didn't _come after_ me. We were just testing the shield's ability to deflect bullets."

"While you were holding it?" Bucky asks, and only after the fact does he hope the words didn't sound like a lead weight dropping to the floor.

"...Yep," Howard supplies, after Steve spends a second or two floundering.

" _Sure_ she didn't come after you," Dugan snickers.

"She _didn't_ ," Steve insists, but Bucky doesn't like the way Steve won't meet his eye. "Me and Howard were talking, I was holding it, she came up, I asked what she thought, she said we should test it, and I held it up for her to fire at. That's the exact order everything happened in."

"I can at least vouch for that," Howard says, raising a hand. 

"Mmhmm," Gabe intones from the rear of the group.

"It's true!" Steve yelps.

" _Mmhmm!_ "

"All right, all right, that's enough for today," Howard says, a little loudly, and he raises his arms to beckon the Commandos further into the room. "While I have you. Wanna show you guys some things I've been working on that you're gonna be field testin' soon. Like, tomorrow soon. If you don't mind us putting the uniform talk off for a few, Cap," he directs at Steve, as the rest of the men crowd in around him.

"Yeah, we can...we can get back to it later," Steve says, as Bucky lets the others pass him, falling into step with Steve at the back of the group, a few feet behind the others.

"What's the uniform talk about?" Bucky asks quietly, under the cover of Howard's talking, as he slips the shield back into Steve's hands.

"Nothin'," Steve says, equally soft. "I just need to make some changes."

Oh. "And here I was thinkin' that you were gonna keep it."

That's a stupid thing to say, to get upset about. It's a uniform. It's not even that, it's a _costume_ ; it provides nothing by way of conformity with a unit or protection against the elements. It makes Steve a target, and a ridiculous-looking one, at that; Steve had even written him about how silly he felt wearing it on stage. Of course he's gonna get rid of it; it hasn't done any good except for getting the first real smile since Azzano out of Bucky, and the first hungry look from another person that Bucky hasn't wanted to shoot or claw off--

"I'm keepin' it," Steve says, even a little more firmly than Bucky was expecting from him. "I'm just making some...some modifications." He elbows Bucky's arm; the way it sways under the minimal pressure catches him off guard, but he swallows it, and gestures towards Howard with his head. "Pay attention."

"I am," Bucky says, but his eyes aren't on Howard, or on Steve, and that worries Steve all the more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tigers are essentially solitary, with adult males and females really only coming together long enough to mate. (Also, an unintentional [Easter Egg](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8594140/chapters/20276716) on my part).
> 
> I am extremely fond of Closeted!Howard, which I think explains his attachment to Steve despite not spending a lot of one-on-one time with him, and would probably contribute to his later alcoholism and distance from his family. Whether he's bi, or actually gay and Tony just _thinks_ he's bi because his reputation as a womanizer is so well-entrenched (per his conversation with Steve in [On Them Light Has Shined](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8619700/chapters/19764562)), I haven't decided yet.
> 
> Similarly I haven't decided if Wonder Woman is an actual person in this 'verse, or if she's a mass hallucination-inspired legend from the Great War, or a fictional character. (Either way I like to think that Steve, Peggy, and Bucky would all have looked up to her and her proto-Commandos as kids, for different but not dissimilar reasons.)
> 
> I should mention that I find "haha, violent female sexual jealousy is hilarious!" as a trope to be...like...The Worst, and _that scene_ is so wildly annoying to me. So while my intention in this story is to subvert canon more than outright change it, that shit had to get modified.


End file.
